NASA has figured out a new way to safely land on the Moon:
NASA has built a brand new system that could make landing on Moon and Mars a whole lot less risky — and it already has plans to test it out on an upcoming mission.
The agency's Safe and Precise Landing Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) project aims to improve landing safety by combining a suite of laser sensors, a camera, a high-speed computer, and some sophisticated algorithms — all of which, it says, is capable of foregoing the need for a human pilot.
"What we're building is a complete descent and landing system that will work for future Artemis missions to the Moon and can be adapted for Mars," project manager Ron Sostaric said in a NASA statement. "Our job is to put the individual components together and make sure that it works as a functioning system."
The system could allow for landers to touch down on a much wider variety of sites, including near boulders or craters. It can also identify safe target areas that are only half the size of a football field.
To put that into perspective, the landing area for Apollo 11 in 1968 was about 11 by three miles.
YouTube video.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday September 19 2020, @06:19PM (4 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:22PM (3 children)
At the moment autonomous craft can't even drill a hole in the ground (Mars rover). Let alone perform complicated tasks like repairing equipment.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:42PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @08:57PM (1 child)
I seem to recall a few that managed to auger in.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Sunday September 20 2020, @07:18AM
I guess the point is that if autonomous vehicle is unlucky and hits a rock, that's the end of X billion dollar mission. If human is unlucky and hits a rock, human drills 10 cm to the left, or tries with a different drill bit (which is in the tool shed back at base, or at worst on the next supply mission).
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:09PM (1 child)
I never really got the hang of this [moonlander.seb.ly]. The march of progress, I guess. Although at this point, I bet they'll start making the moon more realistic-looking and have you try to survive after it crashes.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @08:36PM
I need this as a KSP addon.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Saturday September 19 2020, @08:23PM
With the first moon landing there were a lot of concerns whether they would land safely or discover that that the planned landing site would have fatal irregularities they couldn't see from the telescopes they had.
There's been a lot of progress since then.
-- hendrik
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 19 2020, @08:42PM (15 children)
NASA isn't wiling to rely on a woman's parking ability.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by fakefuck39 on Saturday September 19 2020, @11:30PM (14 children)
what the actual fuck. the 87yo feminist bitch strikes from beyond the grave. someone best qualified to go on dangerous space missions is always going to be a man. there are some women more fit than some men, but there will always be a some man more fit than any woman. you have a virtually unlimited amount of smart people to pick from for a cool mission like this, so physical ability is the determining factor.
so what nasa is announcing here is they won't pick the best qualified candidate for the mission.
i love those movies where some little girl beats the crap out of five guys twice her size at the same time. what we end up with because of this cuck culture and willful ignorance of biology is a bunch of women trying to start fights with men because it's been drilled into them from birth that we have equal physical ability. and getting really hurt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2020, @12:14AM (1 child)
No, what we get is a global economy dominated by China because they don't put up with this SJW nonsense.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Sunday September 20 2020, @08:19PM
lol the global economy is not dominated by china. they have a much lower gpd than us, and their gdp per capita is that of a 3rd world country. they have a lot of cheap underpaid slave-level labor and are willing to pollute where they live. the world is using them, and we can literally replace china with mexico or india or a bunch of other poor countries in a few years. they don't bring anything unique to the market or economy.
that's like saying your busboy and janitorial staff dominate the restaurant.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday September 20 2020, @12:49AM (5 children)
Awwww, man, just chill. How many expendable men have gone to the moon already? We've proven it safe, so now a woman can be risked. The only thing this article tells us is, they aren't going to trust her to park the car. When it was just men, the men parked their own cars. Chill. Take a couple deep breaths. Remember, they won't waste a woman on Mars until at least a dozen men have proven that mankind can survive. And, they won't let women park on Mars, either.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Sunday September 20 2020, @08:11PM (4 children)
I think it's ridiculous that instead of best candidates, completely ignoring sex, they are stating they will pick a woman. space and science has no room for politics or sjw crap.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday September 20 2020, @11:17PM (3 children)
I'm trying to be fair here. NASA has a boatload of astronauts. They have an abundance of both male and female astronauts who are qualified to go on just about any mission. It's highly unlikely that they have a bevy of totally unqualified women hanging around, hoping for a ride. The women in the program have most assuredly earned their tickets to the moon, or to Mars, or beyond.
Additionally, mankind needs to learn some things that WILL NOT be learned, until women are put to the test. I mean, what good would it be if we could suddenly fly our male asses to the stars in just days or weeks, but women can't go? You're not going to start a lot of colonies that way, unless you take a bunch of eggs to be fertilized after you get there. We need to find out how women are affected in space, by weightlessness, greater and lesser levels of radiation, the atmosphere they breathe, and so much more.
Once more, I'll point out that men have always been expendable, women less so.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:53PM (2 children)
65 women have been in space. this tells me about 10% of the time, the best qualified candidate has been a woman. so stating for sure that the mission will be for a woman tells me it's 90% likely they will not pick the best candidate.
Let's say your work has a programmer position opening next year. On the job requirements, it says only a woman will be hired - so if there is a man better qualified, he need not apply. Because they don't want the best candidate - they want a woman.
this is paid for by tax dollars - a lot of them. and we're paying for a space mission, so putting someone who is not the best candidate there lowers chances of success of that mission.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @03:13PM (1 child)
I'll be more explicit here. No ovaries have ever gone to the moon. Among all the other scientific data we need to collect, we need to learn if ovaries, uteri, mammary glands, and all the rest are adversely affected by conditions on the moon.
I'm not aware of any male astronauts who possess a woman's reproductive system.
I know it sounds preposterous, but ask yourself "what if" women who went to Antarctica could never reproduce again. Or maybe slightly less preposterous, what if women who went more than two miles high in the mountains came back sterile. Possibly less preposterous yet, what if women who dived deeper than 3/4 mile under the ocean's surface became sterile.
However preposterous my examples might sound, we know that women don't always experience the same consequences that males experience from various environmental affects. We need to learn if, and how, women fare in deep space, on the moon, and anywhere else we might go in space.
We really do need chicks in space, man!!
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @03:32PM
And if this mission was about "how chicks do on the moon" I would agree with you. But that's not the purpose of this mission. This mission is about "we haven't been to the moon in 50 years, the people who worked on the last tech are dead or at a funeral home with dementia, and forgot how to do it - let's see if we can figure out how to make it work again."
So what we have here is a proof of concept for untested technology and procedure, and we're not going to pick the best person to make that proof of concept successful.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mhajicek on Sunday September 20 2020, @03:33AM (5 children)
Size is a factor; the smallest, lightest person with the requisite mental capabilities is the optimal choice. Chances are that's a woman.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Sunday September 20 2020, @08:09PM (4 children)
for the same exact size, a man is stronger than a woman, and his same-sized body can tolerate a ton more abuse and still be functional and survive. again, there is an unlimited pool of people who'd want to go on this. so if you want 120lb, 5'5, 140iq, you can have plenty of men and women fit that criteria. the man will perform better physically every time.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 21 2020, @12:24AM (3 children)
Maybe. If men are telling women how to do things, you're probably right. If women are allowed to figure out how to do things, maybe not so much.
Question: How many times have you had to turn a motorcycle right side up? Genuinely street-worthy bikes start out over 500 pounds, and can weigh a lot more. I never looked forward to picking one up. Huh - turns out that "picking it up" is the wrong way to go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndRF64N-PmQ [youtube.com]
It took a little bitty woman to teach us big burly guys that we're all dumbasses.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Monday September 21 2020, @01:57PM (1 child)
I'm not a rider - as she lifts it, the handlebars are not straight ahead - what keeps the front wheel from turning and making the bike move away from her? It looks to me like that's something they overlooked (either they didn't mention to apply the front brake as you lift, or they somehow stopped the front wheel from turning).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @03:55PM
With the bike in gear, the front wheel can't roll very far - a few inches at most. In fact, you might WANT that much "give" in the front. A reasonably intelligent person who found the bike rolling away from them would probably reach down and set the brake. Other videos can be found in which the narrator tells you to "lash" the front brake to avoid the front of the bike rolling.
Of course, the important part is the underlying lesson to use your strongest muscles to get the job done. Thigh muscles are almost always stronger than back and biceps, whether you're male or female.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:42PM
so your argument is, strength and ability to survive is not needed for this mission, because instead of following directions from the hundreds of people working out a procedure at mission control, a woman will come up with a better way that will not need strength.
I'm on board with this. She should then stay on earth and work out those awesome procedures for the guy in the capsule. And if a procedure is better done using strength, he can do that one too.